Faerie Thief
by mangaluva
Summary: When your whole life is an act, what's left when the show is over? When all you are is a dream, dare you try to come true? Living in dreamland is not so pleasant when all around you are nightmares... rated for dark emotional scenarios and death.
1. Prologue

_My mother said I never should  
Play with the fairies in the wood  
If I did, she would say  
You naughty girl to disobey  
Your hair won't grow, your shoes won't shine  
You naughty little girl, you shan't be mine!_

This poem refers to a little girl going to play with fairies, and being… replaced.

_A __**Changeling**__ is a creature found in Western European folklore and folk religion. It is typically described as being the offspring of a faerie, troll, elf or other legendary creature that has been secretly left in the place of a human child. A human child might be taken due to many factors: to act as a servant, the love of a human child, or malice. Most often it was thought that faeries exchanged the children. Some Norwegian tales tell that the change was made to prevent inbreeding: to give trolls and humans new blood, humans were given children with enormous strength as a reward. Often, the faerie child left in its place would be a source of mischief or disaster._

Faeries are creatures of myth and folklore. They are the namesake of fairy tales, warning stories to scare children into obedience. They are in our fears and dreams. They are not real.

That doesn't mean that they don't exist.


	2. Chapter 1

_My name is Kudo Shinichi._

_I am six years old._

_I have two loving parents, a ditzy drama queen of a mother and a logical author father. I have a best friend, Mori Ran, whom I've known since we were babies because our mothers were friends. I go to Teitan Elementary school, where I'm in the first grade. I want to be a detective when I grow up, and I like mystery novels and football._

_That's why I'm out here. I came to play football. I came alone because Ran doesn't like football. I know this now._

_I look into the face of the boy from whom all of this knowledge has been taken. He looks like me. Or rather, I look like him._

_He looks confused as the beautiful woman picks him up. She's an Elder, though it doesn't show, of course. She looks just as she may have done at the dawn of time._

"_You're not my Kaasan," he says. "Put me down."_

"_I _am_ your Kaasan now_," _she purrs, not putting him down. "Time to come home with me, precious child. Come play with me forever." He's struggling a little, confused and frightened, but even as he does so they're fading away, going somewhere else, leaving me alone._

_He was out a long time. Soon his mother will be looking for him. Our mother. My mother, now. I'm Kudo Shinichi._

_That's always been the case, now._

*****

My name is Kudo Shinichi. I'm eighteen years old.

I'm also in a _lot_ of trouble.

"Baka!" Ran rages, kicking at my head. I duck, before rapidly rolling out of the way of another blow. "Put- poor- Higurashi-sensei- back- to- normal- right- _NOW!!_"

"Fine, fine," I say quickly. A second later and the longsuffering teacher is back behind her desk, rather than finding herself walking around the ceiling. All I _did_ was put little sucker cups on her shoes and flip her onto the ceiling. And put her in a new dress that wouldn't succumb to gravity and fall over her head when I did so. And dye her hair a pretty silver colour.

"Honestly, Shinichi!" Ran growls angrily. "Three quarters of the time you're such a calm known-it-all baka-tantei, but then you just start causing havoc!"

"Now that's just not fair," I protest. "I've been a good boy lately, right?"

"Yes, that's what worries me," Ran says, before stomping off to snap at our giggling classmates. I'd quite like to calm her down and reassure her that I'm not going to blow up the school on Graduation Day, but that would mean telling her just _how_ I'm letting out my innate urge to cause havoc. Given that her dad's a detective, with plenty of friends in the police, this would be a bad idea. I kind of like not being arrested.

Not that they could hold me, anyway. I don't have to be anywhere that I don't want to be. This is something else that I can't explain to her, or anyone, something that's lurking in the back of my mind. The rest of it's occupied with being Kudo Shinichi. This bit is for afterwards.

Hondo is chatting to Ran again. Probably still building up the courage to ask her out. I've been trying to scare him out of the idea for two years, but he's not budging. Ran doesn't seem to mind him at all, though. In fact, whenever she's hanging out with him she downright ignores me. Sometimes, I swear, I care more about our friendship than she does.

She's going shopping this afternoon with Sonoko. That means I'm going to have nobody to hang out with- I'm sort of pals with the rest of our class, but really most people sort of avoid getting too close to me. Maybe they think I'm a Shinigami or something. I certainly run into more than my fair share of murder cases, but hey, solving murders is something that I'm really good at. And it keeps me occupied.

If I don't run into a murder on the way home, I'm liable to get bored. When I'm bored, the urge to cause havoc gets stronger than ever. When that happens, I give into it. I fly into the night. It's not like my parents have ever noticed that I leave. They've been in America since I was thirteen. It's like they barely love me at all, sometimes.

I don't run into any murders on the way home. That's it. Tonight, I fly.

*****

_I like the night. It's always been my friend. I ride the dreams of the city on the white wings that the police have decided are a hanglider. I go where I want, do what I want, take what I want. I amaze the world and baffle the police. People talk of magic. Some talk of tricks._

_But I have to give it all back by sunup. I can't take to keep. Not yet._

There are many things that I have to keep hidden. At night, I let it all go. I can do what I like, because the police will never believe that it's all real. They search for tricks, never once imagining that maybe it's all real. As logical, realistic Kudo Shinichi, I can understand that. But at night, I am not Kudo Shinichi.

"So here you are again, Kid."

I don't need to look around to recognize that dry voice. My fellow wannabe Heisei Holmes. At least he doesn't want to be Lupin too.

"You got here fast tonight, Tantei-san," I remark lazily, relaxing in the moonlight like a cat sunning itself. I love the moonlight. It's so beautiful, so powerful. "Any theories on how tonight went?"

"I'm certain that you must have had at least two accomplices out there," he comments, slowly stalking towards me. "When I find them, I'll have you. You can't possibly have pulled that trick on your own."

I can. It was no trick.

"Good luck with that," I say honestly. If he ever catches anyone like me, I will be genuinely impressed. With that, I drop from the roof and into the night, spreading my wings and delighting at the feel of the wind under them.

As Kudo Shinichi, I'll have short lifespan, only eighty years or so at the most. I decided years ago to enjoy every minute of it.

I'm quite looking forward to graduation. My parents will be there- and I haven't seen them in so long- but so will a friend of mine, Hattori Heiji. I met him on a case a few years ago and we're friends. He's been up to Tokyo a few times, but I've never been down to Osaka. I don't know why. The idea just worries me. I think there's something down there. But I'll have to go for his graduation, which is the week after mine. I promised.

*****

Graduation day is sunny and bright. The Sakura are in full bloom. It looks like it'll be perfect.

"No mayhem _whatsoever_," Ran hisses warningly. I make little halo motions over my head with my hands. The Tokyo Met can probably attest to the fact that I got all possible mayhem out of my system last night. Actually, they're probably still trying to wash the paint off.

A lot of seniors are exchanging numbers, email addresses, swearing to keep in touch. Girls are crying. They do that a lot. Even Ran and Sonoko, whom I know for a fact are planning to go shopping together tomorrow, are sobbing in each others' arms. My mother is crying happily, too. They did turn up, which makes me happy. So often they don't.

"Congratulations," my father says, shaking my hand. It's a bit of a formal gesture, but he's always been like that. My mother just cries.

"Oi, Kudo! So ya did graduate!"

"Well, I did have to pay off the headmaster first," I deadpan. I've always been top of my class. So's Hattori. To my surprise, he's got a girl with him. I nod at her when Hattori reaches me. "So who's your girlfriend?"

"Girlfriend?" he says, and glances at the girl as though he's wondering who I'm talking about. Then he spots the girl and laughs. "Nah, Kazuha ain't my girlfriend, she's just been my pal since we were kids. Oi, Kazuha, this is Kudo Shinichi. Kudo, Toyama Kazuha."

"Nice to meet you," I say politely, bowing slightly. Kazuha, who had been looking around, properly looks at me, smiling at first as she returns the greeting. But her smile and voice falter fast, colour draining from her face as she stares at me. I feel uneasy. There's something about her. I want to get away.

"What are you?" she hisses angrily. Hattori stares at her in shock.

"Kazuha, what th' hell?" he demands. I can feel my blood freezing at her question. The part of my mind locked away, the part that loves chaos and moonlight, the part that's always _for later_… now it's screaming at me. Screaming to get away. She ignores Hattori's question, instead pulling out something from around her neck, something on a string.

An omamori. The characters on it, to my eyes, keep shifting, but always the same message:

_Go away. Show yourself. Go away_.

I run.

I can hear my parents, Ran and Hattori shouting, but I have to keep running. I have to get away from that girl. I run all the way home-

Not home. This is Beika Park. This is a part off the path, a grassy patch surrounded by trees which is big enough to be a football pitch for a six-year-old. Why did I come here?

The omamori is still burned into my mind. I can feel an urge that I can remember from the night. _Show yourself_. I have the urge to spread my wings, to be free. But I have a role. I'm Kudo Shinichi. I have to be Kudo Shinichi-

"Kudo!"

I glance around. Hattori has caught up, panting heavily. Kazuha is still with him, still clutching the omamori. I know now. She's why I was afraid to go to Osaka. She has some sort of power, I don't know or really care what. I can feel spasms through my whole body. Pain. I want her to go away.

"Kudo, what the hell's wrong?" Hattori demanded. "I know Kazuha was bein' pretty rude, but ya look like yer gonna puke…"

"Get her away from me," I beg. "Make her stop." I can feel my voice warping. It doesn't sound like Kudo Shinichi's anymore.

"Shin-chan!"

Now my parents are coming. They pale when they see where I am.

_The little boy looked so frightened_-

I have no chance to respond when Kazuha throws her omamori at me. It strikes me on the forehead and stays there, burning me with sparks of lighting, stripping away my human image. Hattori's angry yell at Kazuha is cut off as he stares. My mother is still crying.

* * *

_And here is A Faerie Thief… because the plunnies adored it. It's only seven chapters long anyway, so I'll be posting this for a week while I hunt down my APT muses._


	3. Chapter 2

I'm not Kudo Shinichi.

I'm only twelve years old.

They can all see that now. I can feel it. My face is still Kudo Shinichi's- I don't have another. But the rest of me…

They're all silent as they stare. My skin has whitened, I know, to the same colour as my wings. My hair tone will have changed to a pale green, like the new leaves on the trees and bushes around us. My limbs have elongated a little, slimmer and more elegant than human limbs, probably not noticeable under the uniform, especially since I've shrunk a little. I figure that it'll be the wings that stand out the most. I curl up in pain, clawing at the omamori that has stripped me defenceless. Suddenly, gentle hands remove it, and I collapse, panting.

"What'd ya do that for?" I can hear Kazuha ask angrily.

"You were hurting it," my mother says. _Shinichi_'s mother says. _It_.

"What th' hell is it?" Hattori says in shock. "What's happened ta Kudo?"

"That thing replaced him," Kazuha says, shaken. "Years ago, maybe. I don't know if you've ever met the real Kudo Shinichi."

"That can't be-"

"How old are you?" the father asks. I'm not sure whose father he is right now. Shinichi's, definitely. But am I Shinichi still?

"Twelve," I croak. I can't move. I'm scared that if I do, Kazuha will throw the omamori at me again. I'm so scared.

"I told you, Yuusaku," I hear Shinichi's mother say. "Something was wrong. I told you."

"I can't believe it…" Shinichi's father says in shock. My blood freezes. _She knew_.

"What th' hell?" Hattori demands again. "What is this? What happened ta Kudo!"

"When Shinichi was six," Shinichi's mother says faintly, "There was a day where he went out to play on his own. When he was late for dinner, I went looking for him. He did that a lot, I wasn't worried, but…" I look up at her and there are still tears in her eyes. She won't meet my gaze. "I don't know why, but something was wrong. He looked like my son, he spoke like my son, he called me "Kaasan"… but he… he's not…"

"You left me," I manage to say. I still hurt from the omamori's strike, but this hurts too. "You knew. You didn't want to be near me."

"You took my child from me!" she screams angrily. I flinch, shaking my head. It hurts. I don't want her to hate me. Shinichi's father narrows his eyes.

"Why are you shaking your head?" he demands. He sounds angry too, now, realizing that his son was taken from him. He's logical. He'd never believe in my kind until he saw me. He believes now. He hates me too. It hurts again.

"I didn't take him," I whisper. "The Elders did. They left me behind to be Kudo Shinichi. They have to."

"So who're you?" Hattori asks.

"Kudo Shinichi," I reply. I have nothing else to say. They all bristle, and Yuusaku's jaw is twitching.

"You," he states coldly, "are not my son. What is your real name?"

"I don't have another name," I say honestly. "I don't know. I'm supposed to be Kudo Shinichi. That's all I know. Until his life runs out. When that happens, I can go back to the home realm, I'll have a Faerie name. But I don't have any other name. Not yet. Please, I don't know."

"Yuusaku, it's scared of us," Shinichi's mother pleads. She seems to be feeling a little kinder towards me, or maybe it's just pity. She kneels down in front of me, finally meeting my eyes. They're violet now, not deep blue like Shinichi and his father. I shrink away slightly. I am scared. I don't know what to do. I'm supposed to be Kudo Shinichi. That's all I know how to do. "What did you say you are? A Faerie?" I nod mutely. "Don't you want to go home? To the Faerie land?"

"This is home," I whisper. "This is home. You're my parents. I'm Kudo Shinichi. I don't know anything else. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

*****

I'm sitting in my room. Shinichi's room. We had to leave the park before somebody saw me, though I've managed to put my human façade back on. They're all arguing now. Shinichi's parents. Hattori. Kazuha. She just wants to get rid of me, I know. Hattori seems to think I'm broken in the head. I feel broken.

I'm not sure what I've done wrong. I've been Kudo Shinichi. I've kept the other side of me, the Faerie side, the part that loves magic and moonlight and mayhem, to the night. To the Kaitou Kid.

Maybe that could be my name. Kaito. Nobody wants me to be Kudo Shinichi. It's not good enough. I'm not good enough. I need a family name, too. We're related to plants, my kind, like family. I like clovers the best, like the one I put on my monocle. "Kuroba," I say, the word distorted by my Japanese accent. Kuroba Kaito. That could be my name.

Shinichi's mother keeps crying. That hurts. I want to make it better, but there's only one way to do that and I don't know how. I stand up, heading down the stairs, to the living room where they are arguing about what to do with me. Angry voices float up.

"What th' hell _are_ Faeries, anyways?"

"Dream spirits. They like ta take children, an' they leave mischievous Changeling babies in their place. They're sorta nature spirits, as well."

"Why do they take children?"

"Dreams," I speak up, stepping into the room. "Nobody dreams like a human child. And their imaginations are amazing. Children taken by the Elders play in Faerieland forever. They won't ever age or get ill or hurt. They're safe forever." Shinichi's mother shakes her head.

"My baby isn't safe until he's back here," she says. Her eyes are red and puffy now. Hattori, Kazuha and Shinichi's father all watch me with varying levels of hostility and suspicion.

"Faeries an' humans aren't supposed ta be together," Kazuha says firmly. "People kinda instinctively avoid changelings. We know you ain't real, on some level." She glares at Hattori. "If we ain't complete _aho_, anyways."

"I'm sorry," I say again. I've been saying it a lot. "I don't want you to be sad, Kaasan…" she flinches at the address and I bite my tongue. "I wish I could bring Shinichi back, but I don't know how to get to Faerieland. I'm too young. Even if I did know, I don't think humans can leave. Nobody's ever gone back before their time, I don't think. I'm sorry. I'm too young to know, really."

"Yer just a kid," Hattori says with a frown. "Ya kinda shrank when ya put yer real form on…" he tips his head a little. "Why didn't yer face change?"

"This is my face," I say honestly. "I was born to be Kudo Shinichi. Everything I am is supposed to be Kudo Shinichi until his lifeline runs out."

"Yer just a puppet, then," he muses. "You ain't our problem. Yer "Elders" are."

"They're _all_ our problem!" Kazuha burst out. "You ain't supposed ta be here and Kudo ain't supposed ta be in the Faerie Land. You have ta get him back."

"I don't know how," I whimper again. I feel so alone. It's clear now that I'm an outcast to them, a fake. Maybe that's all I am. There's nothing to me but the pretence of Kudo Shinichi and the love of the moonlight.

"I do."

We all start at the smooth voice. It's a woman, lounging in the doorway. Few can lounge so lazily standing upright, but she manages it. She's dressed so oddly, in some kind of tight black bustier and red miniskirt, with black tights and impossibly high heels. Buried in her deep purple hair is some kind of diadem with a snake on it. It feels like it's watching me. _She's_ watching me, with piercing crimson eyes. She's not human, or if she was, not anymore.

"Who are you?" Shinichi's father demands. "How did you get in here?"

"I go where I like," she says lazily, sauntering over to me. She catches my chin in her hand and turns my head a little, her bangles jingling in a hypnotizingly musical fashion, peering at me. I'm too frozen to resist.

"What are ya?" Kazuha demands for the second time that day. She draws the omamori again.

"Put it away, I'm offering to help you," she says, waving her hand at the human girl. "I'm a witch. I can help you get to the realm of the Faeries… for a price, one which you would no doubt pay anyway."

"Wh-what do you mean?" Shinichi's mother whimpers. "Can you get Shin-chan back?"

"I cannot," the witch says. "I cannot enter the Faerie realm. The Elders are blocking me. But _you_ can go back… if you listen to me."

"What do you want?" I ask, summoning courage. I want our mother to stop crying. I have to bring Shinichi back.

"Later," she says with a slow smile. "Do you want my help or not, Faerie?"

"Kaito," is all I can think to say. They all stare at me. "I'm not supposed to be Kudo Shinichi anymore. They don't want me to be. But I'm not supposed to go back to the home realm yet either. So I made my own name. It's Kuroba Kaito."

"I see. A good choice, a name of strength and luck," she muses with a smile. "You may call me Akako. Are we allied?" I nod, her hand still on my chin. She drops it with a nod of her own.

"What are ya doin'?" Hattori demands. "Are ya really gonna get the real Kudo?"

Akako is already walking out of the room. I follow her. As I pass Shinichi's mother, I reach out to wipe one of her tears away.

"Whatever else I am, you have been my only mother," I murmur, "And I don't want you to be sad." With that, I follow Akako upstairs.

"Do you sleep, Faerie?" she asks, peeking into rooms. She steps into my bedroom, peering over my untouched bed.

"No," I say honestly. "I've never needed to."

"So instead you fly." She turns to face me. "You said yourself that your kind are dream creatures. You can reach the Faerie realm in your dreams."

"How do I sleep?" I ask. I've seen humans sleep, tasted their dreams, but I've never done it myself. They just lie down and close their eyes. When I do that, all I get is bored.

"Your kind only sleep once, at the end of your human's lifespan," she says, patting the bed. "Lie down. I will cast a spell that will help you sleep. You will find your way there through your dreams." I obey, not knowing what else to do.

"I will be here, performing the spell," she says, pressing on my eyelids to make me close my eyes. "In the realm of dreams time moves differently. You may awaken in a minute or a century, regardless of how long you spend there. Remember that names are powerful, and dreams are real, and reality is only a matter of opinion anyway."

"Hey, what're ya-" I hear Hattori yell, but then Akako places her hand over my eyes and it all vanishes.

_It's dark. For a time, there is nothing. Then I feel dreams all around me. At any time, all around the world, people are asleep. People are dreaming. _

_I follow the dreams._

_At the end is a field of clovers._

* * *

_There's his form, __**SoftcoreOtaku**__. Now on to describing the Faerie Realm!_

_It's a bit creepy, __**Marie Ravenclaw,**__ but it's only 7 chapters long, so I'm sure you'll make it ;) Meh, glad I don't go to church anymore, not just because I'm an atheist. I like my sleeps on the weekend _

_Glad you think so, __**KageNoNeko**__ :)_

_Arigatou, __**kaitoushinichi**__! Whee! XDXD Here's your next chapter. Now stop spamming. It's bad for trees._

_I've been wanting to put this up for a while, __**tanteigirl69.**__ Hope you enjoy it :)_

Only in my wildest dreams do I own Meitantei Conan or Magic Kaito. Please don't dream up a lawsuit.


	4. Chapter 3

It's all so beautiful.

I stare in wonder at the fields of green surrounding me. I'm in my true form again, I can feel the soft breeze under my wings. I stretch my long, elegant limbs, and see that I am wearing the white suit of the Kaitou Kid. I reach up, and find the hat and monocle too. My true nature was expressed in the Kaitou Kid, and so here, in this world of dreams, the Kaitou Kid is what I become.

The sunlight is golden, like a permanent, beautiful afternoon. It is a little warm, but pleasantly so, not dry or sticky or suffocating. The constant soft breeze keeps it that way, tossing the leaves of the clovers and flowers in a soft rustling. There's no sun in the sky, though. No clouds. Just a spectrum of blue and gold.

I float up a little. It's comfortable to fly. In the wind I can hear the laughter and chatter of children. So here, then, is where the children are kept.

I follow the sound, and come upon a silver mist. I touch it. Dreams. Imagination. Children are at play here. One of them may be Shinichi, so I step inside.

It's still beautiful, but it's colder, and there's a sun in the sky. It's a forest, but the edge of it, and in front of me is a tremendous field, filled with tiny pools and random fences. I hear a multitude of hoofbeats, and suddenly six children crest the hill, riding the most amazing horses- black, white, dappled, massive beasts with beautiful coats and powerful muscles, running almost too fast as they leap impossibly high and far over obstacles.

The children suddenly spot me and ride up to me, dismounting smoothly though they must be eight feet off of the ground and the tallest is no more than three feet. This is their dream, then, their game, but as soon as they notice me and forget the game, it vanishes and we are in the Faerie realm once more.

They are dressed oddly. The tallest girl is wearing a red hood, hiding her hair, with elaborate gold weave and little pearls in it. Her dress is similarly rich and sumptuous, with a wide red velvet skirt that really ought to make it impossible to ride a horse. The smallest looks like a little girl, with shoulder-length golden curls and a long white nightie, less than two years old. A couple of the other children are as richly dressed as the oldest girl, though in different styles, but a boy and a little girl are both dressed in rags, clothes of drab colours that are tending towards brown. They had been richly dressed in the dream, but here they are still covered in the filth that they lived in when they were stolen.

They ask me something, a cacophony of inquisitive voices, but I don't know what. I don't know their language. It sounds like English, but like none I've ever heard. Perhaps they have been here centuries. They seem to recognize what I am, anyway. They became suddenly hostile the second that they saw my wings and strange colourings. I wonder if Faeries come down here frequently. I think probably not. The smallest is staring at me like she's never seen such a thing before.

I shake my head, raising my hands with the long white fingers splayed defensively, trying to mime to them that I have the wrong people, the wrong place. They fall silent as I step backwards again-

It's a field again, much larger, and the grasses are tall and yellow now. It's hot, very hot, and herds of creatures are dotted around- huge bison, graceful gazelle rippling across the plains. The land looks primeval. My suspicion is confirmed when a group of warriors burst out of the grasses. All are, without exception, tall, strong, and faster than the gazelle as they chase them down.

Faeries have been taking children for millennia. Ancient children have simpler dreams, closer to reality, though I know that if I disrupt this dream, these powerful warriors will awaken to the naked stone-age children that they really are. Children don't just change the world around them in dreams.

I find the way out of the game, and follow cloud after cloud of woven dreams, sometimes startling the children out of their fantasies, sometimes slipping away unnoticed. None are Shinichi. The children group themselves by countries, and mostly by eras; I startle children who speak in French, Chinese, Spanish, Latin; children in rags, children in different varieties of rich clothes, children with no clothes at all. None are Shinichi.

My thoughts are rapidly becoming consumed by the face that I only really glimpsed once, twelve years ago. I have to find the boy. It's the only way to comfort his parents- Our parents. I refuse to give up on the only family that I've ever known, even if they don't want me.

"_They have noticed you._"

The voice shocks me. I glance around, and feel something jingle around my wrist. It's one of the bangles that Akako had around her wrist, and it's speaking to me in her voice.

"Akako?" I say tentatively into the bracelet.

"_This thing's telepathic, don't speak aloud or they'll know that I'm helping you and that would be bad for both of us. Listen to me, they've noticed that there's a Faerie in the valley. Faeries don't go down there. It's for the human children only. But when they find you, that'll be the least of your problems._"

_I know_, I think to her. _I'm a Changeling. I shouldn't have left yet._

_But how do you know so much?_

There is no reply. I keep moving, waiting for a reply and watching for Shinichi. I have to find him, and soon. If the Elders have noticed me, I'm in trouble.

Then I'm in London.

I recognize the dingy streets from the descriptions in endless Holmes novels. There is smog everywhere, but it's atmospheric and not choking at all. There are running footsteps echoing in the streets.

I'm nearly hit by a shadowy figure as he tears past. His form in indistinct, black except for piercing eyes. In this dream, there are no details; nothing but an enemy is needed.

The dark figure is followed by three running me. Like most of the children, these boys have dreamed themselves to be tall, strong, fast, amazing. They are also all wearing Holmes outfits. I scan their faces, my heart quickening. If anyone would dream about Holmes, it would be Kudo Shinichi. I know this better than anyone else can.

They pass me too quickly to be sure, but then two women step out in front of the fleeing figure; they've dreamed themselves some rather beautiful forms, and, from the way that the darker-haired one kicks him in the face, rather flexible ones too. Impossibly flexible. Dreams make everything possible, which is what my kind depends on.

"Hello?" I call. All five turn to stare at me, and in an instant the dream vanishes and I am facing five children, including Kudo Shinichi.

He's identical to how he was twelve years ago, down to the smudge of dirt on his cheek. Time does not pass for the children. He stares up at me in confusion, before recognition dawns.

"You were there," he said. "The last time I was… home." He seems to be struggling with his memories, but he points an accusing finger at me, oblivious of the others' inquisitive stares. "Why are you so big?"

"It's been twelve years…" I begin. I mean to end the sentence with his name, to call him "Shinichi", but I can't. The words twist in my mouth and become "Conan". I stare at the child in confusion. I try to say his name again, but once more it becomes "Conan".

"Twelve years?" He responds incredulously. "Oh no… Kaasan… Tousan… and…" he slumps down, looking on the verge of tears. "I can't remember… I keep trying, but I can't…"

"Living in this realm does drain you of all memory of your life before," the blonde girl says calmly. She's speaking Japanese, but very old Japanese. I wonder how long she's been here. "It even takes from us our names. I feel that I had a name other than "Ai" once, but it is nought but a feeling."

"That's why I can't say your name," I realize. "They gave you Faerie names to keep you here." I kneel down before Shinichi. It's strange- we look so alike. Of course we do. I am his copy, his funhouse mirror. He will not look at me. I know that my face must unnerve him. I tip my head forwards, so that my hat brim will shadow it somewhat, in the hopes of alleviating his discomfort. This boy is me and already I care for him deeply. "Listen to me, Conan. I am going to try to take you home." All of the children stare at that.

"You can _leave_?" the tall, skinny one says in shock.

"How?" the fat one demands.

"Are you going to leave us, Conan-kun?" the dark-haired little girl says tearfully. Shinichi stares at me in wonderment.

"_You're_ gonna take me… home…?" he asks, and vanishes.

"What-?!" I yelp in surprise, looking around. The field is gone, and the children with it, and instead I am in a golden chamber. At least, the floor that I can see is gold; around the spotlight on me is darkness. I feel claustrophobic. I also feel that there are others in here.

"You've returned far too soon, Kudo Shinichi," a voice says. It is cold and cruel and sends shivers down my spine. It is an Elder.

Faces light up around me. "_Ooh, it's more serious than I thought_," Akako laughs in my mind. "_All of the Elders are here for you._" I stare around at the faces. I see one that I recognize- the female who took Shinichi away, still all wavy platinum hair and icy blue eyes. She has all of the characteristics of beauty, but somehow she isn't beautiful. Perhaps it's because I left the humans too soon, perhaps it's the omamori. Whatever it is, somehow she seems so obviously fake. They all do.

The one whom I think might have spoken is a male, but he has even longer hair than the female. It hides much of his face, silver locks down to the ground which only reveal an unsmiling mouth and green eyes- and if the female's are made of ice, his are made of liquid nitrogen. To his side is a stocky one who sits back into the shadows slightly. He seems to have taken on the form of a mafia member or the like. The one watching me most piercingly, however, has brownish-purple hair and a squint. Because of the squint, I probably shouldn't feel that he's watching me so piercingly, but he is and it's very uncomfortable. He's also wearing glasses. These are unnecessary for my kind, we can dream perfect eyesight, but perhaps he just likes the look of it. These four are flanking a dark figure who remains in shadow, though I feel a dark aura from him. Most have folded their wings away, but to the side is a ginger woman who is lazily flapping hers. They look like a black butterfly's. Across from her is a solemn grey figure. I wonder why anyone would dream themselves so boring. I didn't know Faeries could _be_ that boring.

I'm a little confused, and not a little frightened. This is supposed to be my land, a land of dreams. Why do I feel like I'm in a nightmare?

"Explain yourself, please," the blonde woman demands, but not in a cold or harsh way. It sounds more like the seductive request of a lover, but there is nevertheless an underlying feeling that her request _will _be obeyed. I can feel my mouth opening, and I think fast before I speak.

"They found me out," I say, not lying. "Some girl. She had some charm, I don't know. It hurt. They found me and they didn't want me anymore."

"So you fled here?" the cold male asks, narrowing his eyes on me. I haven't lied, but I'm not telling the whole truth.

"Why did you go to the Children's Valley instead of the Citadel?" The blonde woman asks again, leaning forward to scrutinize me. Unlike the cold man, who seems suspicious, she looks positively fascinated.

"I got lost," I say. "I'm young."

"He is awfully young for a Changeling," the grey one says slowly. "Should we send him back?"

"He's a little old for that, isn't he?" the ginger butterfly comments. She has a harsh voice. "I mean, you want to eat a teenager's dreams, be my guest, but I'm not personally into GTA and wet dreams about J-pop singers."

"The Citadel is out of that door," the blonde woman says, pointing languorously at a golden door that appears suddenly behind me, making me jump, fluttering my white wings nervously. "You may explore while we come to a decision. But do not leave, and do not return to the Children's Valley, do you understand?"

"I understand," I say, nodding slowly, trying to compose myself. To redon the blank mask of the Kaitou Kid. I cannot afford to let them read me. I will not be the only one to pay if they know what I'm planning.

"_They will not give you his name or help you take him away,_" Akako whispers. "_Do not ask or they'll know what you're planning. They'll be watching you. Just go._"

I go.

* * *

_Poor Kai-chan, __**Marie Ravenclaw…**__ stuck between two worlds… at least he has one sort-of friend._

_That sounds like absolute chaos, __**KSA Key-chan…**__ complete, utter, wonderful chaos XD_

_Shinichi and Kaito are sorta the same guy here, sorta not, __**SoftcoreOtaku… **__And goblins can be cute! Sometimes. Occasionally. Depends on the kind of goblin._

_Glad you think so, __**KageNoNeko**__. And don't worry, I'm a Happy Ending fan :)_

_It's a bit of European folklore, a bit of Terry Pratchett, and a bit of me… it's always good to be a little different, __**Ceirwy**__ ;) Glad you're enjoying it!_

_It's going to get creepier when they venture into nightmares, __**Cat**__. It's somewhat in the style of the old-style European fairy tales, from before Disney took all of the blood and good bits out. It's a short story, only out this week, and I'm updating daily._

Only in my wildest dreams do I own Meitantei Conan or Magic Kaito. Please don't dream up a lawsuit.


	5. Chapter 4

The Citadel is also beautiful. I wonder how so much beauty can exist, and remember that it really doesn't. I wonder what my kind looks like without dreams to feed from. I wonder if we even exist at all.

"_The Elders are afraid to find out,_" Akako sniggers derisively. "_Why do you think they take so many children? All they long for is immortality._"

_Who are they_? I ask, looking around. Faeries drift to and fro, mainly to balconies and windows. There are no stairs- all have wings, translucent and veined like leaves, furry and thick like moths, elaborate and thin like butterflies, even a few feathered like birds. Through the windows I can see dream worlds. On the balconies are the silver clouds that I saw in the Children's Valley. From them echo noises, music, animal cries, the wash of the sea, even more exciting sounds like gunfire or explosions. Faerie entertainment. Do my kind have anything to do but entertain ourselves?

"_The one in the middle, he's just the Shadow Faerie,_" Akako explains, bringing up an image of the courtroom- why do I think of it like that? Was I on trial? Have I committed some crime? Perhaps I have, in returning so soon and seeking to retrieve Conan- and focusing on the one who had remained in shadow. "_I don't know what he looks like, or if he even looks like anything. They say he's existed since the dawn of time, or that he's a bogeyman rather than a Faerie, or whatever. All I can tell you is that he's old and he's in charge- but like the rest of your kind, he can't dream. He can't _imagine. _That's what you need the children for. You feed on their dreams and exist in them. Who knows what would happen without dreams?_"

_Who are the others?_ A few Faeries glance at me, a newcomer, hovering uncertainly outside of the Golden Palace, but do not seem particularly interested. There are far more interesting things happening in the silver clouds.

"_The cold woman- the one who took Shinichi and created you- she's Vermouth,_" Akako says. "_She's a strange one. She… I don't know. Never could get a decent read on her…_" She sounds evasive, though, as if there's something she's not telling me.

_You have been here, haven't you?_ I think at her. I begin, almost absentmindedly, to drift upwards. I've always been happier at heights, and in any case I want to see the layout of this place. I want to see the Valley again. So I've been forbidden to go there. I'm the Kaitou Kid. I go where I please (specifically if it's forbidden) and take what I like (especially if I'm not supposed to).

"_That's the spirit_," Akako says, not answering my question. "_Anyway, the one you want to watch is the male with the long blond hair, Gin. He's a killer._"

_Can my kind die?_

"_Oh yes. Or worse… exist forever in a nightmare. When I said that the Elders took the children's dreams, I didn't just mean good ones. Gin is a master of inspiring and weaving nightmares._"

_I'm not surprised._ I remember that cold green glare piercing me; he's already suspicious.

Well, that's what I created the Poker Face for.

"_The others probably won't be trouble. The Mafia fanboy is Vodka, his speciality is lurking in the shadows of Gin's nightmares and observing that the victim is suffering or dying as necessary. If you die in a dream here, you die for real. The ginger butterfly is Chianti. She prefers killing in dreams to killing in nightmares._"

_That can happen?_ I'm still rising. The Palace and buildings are tall. I glance to the ground. The bases of the buildings are so far away that they're indistinct, but it's odd; they seem to be enveloped in a fog. I wonder if they're really indistinct due to distance, or simply aren't bothering with detail anymore, as if they're only real so long as you're looking closely.

"_Of course they're not real, how many times do I have to tell you that this is a dream world?_" Akako snorts. "_Anyway, it can happen. Think of those stone age children dreaming of a hunt. She'd just affect the dream, subtly, maybe a gust of wind goes wrong and blows a thrown spear off-course… maybe if you're dreaming of flying, suddenly you'll crash… all sorts, if you're creative. She gets a nasty kind of pleasure out it. And the boring one is Korn- you pegged him perfectly, by the way. Maybe it's because he doesn't spend as much time in dreams as the others. I don't know why. I guess with all of this excitement and creativity about, _somebody_ had to deal with boredom._"

_What about…_ I remember the one watching me silently, with light brown hair and unnecessary glasses.

"_Bourbon. Watch out for him. More dangerous than the rest combined. He can pretty much read minds._"

_Pretty much_? I wondered if I could ever reach the top of the tower. Almost everything else had dissolved into a featureless mist below me, like an old videogame.

"_Okay, he can. He can read your thoughts through your eyes. He doesn't like you because he can't get a read on you- whether it's the monocle and hat hiding your face or that Poker Face that you're oh-so-proud of, I don't know. But he knows exactly how to kill you- what nightmares will torture you most before you die._"

_Poker Face_, I remind her. I glance around, trying to see the valley.

"_You won't see it. This land isn't made of geography, it's made of thoughts. You need to think that you're in the Valley. Fear tempers most Faeries' attempts to get there, but you're not most Faeries, are you?_"

I'm not. I wasn't human for long enough, it isn't out of my system. Or maybe the omamori's burn has sealed it in. Whatever the case, I may physically be a Faerie, but my mind is very human. And that, I realize, makes it more powerful than just about any other mind here.

"_You made your name. If you give a thing a name you make it real. You named yourself- that makes it even more real. Most Faeries simply borrow names._"

I remember the valley, and the instant that I do, I'm there.

_Why are they named after drinks, anyway?_ I ask curiously as I begin to search again for Conan. I know perhaps that I'll have less time, because they're watching me. Or maybe more, if they're discussing me. No other Faerie noticed me.

"_It suits them… Pleasant, intoxicating, rob you of your sense and thoughts and immerse you in fantasy," _Akako explained. "_And kill you if you see too much of them._"

_Right…_ I wonder again how long this world has existed. I wonder where Conan is.

At that moment I see him. I think, therefore I am. Literally.

"It's _you_!" he says in surprise when he sees me. Not far from him is a silver cloud, where presumably his friends are playing, but he and Ai are waiting outside. Waiting for me? I wonder if they've been waiting long. Time here is difficult to judge.

"_Time doesn't exist here,_" Akako whispers. "_If you ever return, you'll awaken the moment that you slept. Or a hundred years after. You can't know._"

"Hello, Conan," I say, resting my wings as I set foot on the ground again. The name flows easily off of my tongue, and in horror I realize that, while I know that it's not his true name, I can't remember what his true name is. Faerie law is getting into my head.

"You vanished," Ai says accusingly. She seems defensive and suspicious of me, though curious. The other children have probably already forgotten me.

"The Elders took me," I say, kneeling before them, reaching for their hands. "But I'm back now, and I won't leave you behind. I'll take you home."

"Why?" Conan asks sharply. A sharpness that I remember as being part of my personality, once. But that persona is fading. It was only ever an elaborate act.

"_Focus,_" Akako snaps. "_You're letting your humanity bleed away. You're not human, but you have humanity, and you'll need it to stay real. To win. You can't forget that, Kuroba Kaito._" I blink at the name, the name that I chose. Faeries don't have _human_ names like that, and no family names.

Yes. I have a family, stolen, but a family. I remember his- my- _our_ parent's faces, and my resolve strengthens. But still I cannot remember our name.

"My name is Kuroba Kaito," I say. "But for a long time, I was… you. I love our parents very much, and without you, now that they know that I'm not… real, they're very sad. I don't want them to be sad. I want to take you home so that they'll smile again." Conan's face turns to one of confusion; Ai's eyebrows shoot into her hair. She seems to know something of Faerie natures and clearly I do not fit.

"Please, let me help you. Let me take you home," I say, offering my hand again. I feel a sense of urgency. If time means nothing here, the Elders could drag me back at any moment. Tentatively, Conan takes it. To my surprise, Ai grasps my other hand.

"Can you not help me as well?" she pleads. "I dislike this land. I dislike dreams. I want to go back to what is real." She seems to trust me now, now that Conan does.

"I think you've been here a long time," I caution. "The world will have moved on, maybe by centuries. Your family…"

"My family was in the Next Realm long before I entered this strange one," she says coldly. I say nothing. Perhaps this is why she seems so much more mature than the playing children. "But Conan, when first he appeared, told me about his time and I find it interesting. He also said that there are people who help children without a family find a new family, so that they are not alone. I think I would like this very much. Please, allow me to return with you." I offer my hand to her, grasping their small hands.

"All right," I say. "Don't worry. I promise I'll protect you." I speak confidently, but in my head, to Akako, I cry; _What now?!_

"_The Elders,_" she replies. "_I warned you of dangers. The only way out, with those children, is through them_." I feel my stomach plummet. The cold Gin, who will kill us with nightmares; The cruel Chianti who will attack us at our happiest moments; the mind-reading Bourbon, who will slowly torture us to death…

I have to go through _them_?

"_Too late to change your mind now,_" Akako says, a touch maliciously. The land around me has vanished again, but I'm still holding Conan and Ai's hands. They draw near to me, frightened. I'm not so frightened, I've done this before. I recognize the light pooling around us, the golden floor, and I can even make out dark figures around us. Though perhaps my imagination is simply painting them from my memory.

"_Your kind don't _have_ imaginations_," Akako whispers. "_That's why you steal children's dreams. Normally… your kind don't have imaginations…_" she trails off, sounding thoughtful. I glance around as the faces reappear.

"You were told not to return to that Valley," Gin says quietly. He narrows his eyes coldly on me. He hates me.

_Good. The feeling's mutual, pal,_ I think, clinging tighter to the hands of Conan and Ai. Defiance starts in the mind.

"Why do you have children?" Vodka splutters. "They can't be removed from the Valley!"

"They can," Bourbon sighs, "but since it's banned, nobody ever does."

"But _he_ has," Chianti complains, pointing obviously at me. Some part of me whispers that it's rude, that she has the manners of a child.

"_They get everything else from them,_" Akako sneers. I stand silent, waiting for a time to speak.

"So why these children?" Vermouth drawls. A hand is covering her mouth, making her look contemplative, but somehow I feel that she is smiling. "This boy… he is the one you replaced, is he not?"

"And now I will take him home," I say calmly, even though inside, I am afraid; afraid of these cold and harsh Faeries, afraid of the roiling darkness hiding the one face that I cannot see. I am afraid of what they can do to me. I have tasted nightmares when I fly in the night, tasted the fear and pain of the humans suffering them. I can only imagine how terrible it must be to feel one for myself.

"_You're imagining again,_" Akako comments, almost laughing, apropos of nothing.

"Take him home?" Gin comments, before laughing coldly. It is an unpleasant sound, as if he had to practice to know how to laugh and still couldn't get it quite right. Vodka guffaws sycophantically a second later. Chianti laughs aloud, Korn quirks a grin, Bourbon chuckles lightly. Vermouth is still smiling, her smile has only gotten that bit wider. Conan and Ai shuffle behind my legs, afraid. I show no fear. I can't afford to.

"You want to take him home?" Vermouth comments softly. "Now why would you want to do a thing like that?"

"My- his parents want him back," I tell her, without inflection or emotion, covering up the momentary flub as if it never happened. "I do not wish for them to be sad. I will return him. I ask for his name so that I may do so."

"You want his-?" Bourbon is full-on laughing now, like Chianti. Gin is smiling, but the smile does not extend to his eyes. Vermouth too is smiling, but there is something odd about it. Gin seems predatory. Vermouth seems curious.

"And the girl?" she asks, indicating Ai, who shrinks further behind me. She is determined to return to the world, I can tell. She is trembling violently, and she grips my hand tightly, but she does not flee. If she let go of my hand I feel she would slip away into the Valley, and I believe that she knows so too; so she grips all the tighter. She is afraid, but not too afraid to stay. I squeeze her hand back, promising.

"She wishes to leave too," I say. "She can still remember reality. I would not deny her the chance to return. The other children are happy to remain, and so I will leave them. But these children want to go home. Will it be so much trouble to let them?"

"Frankly, yes," Bourbon drawls. "Those who have been here might find their way back. They might return bringing science and logic, things that destroy dreams, that turn them into nothing but pictures in your head. We do not want the risk. Our world has operated fine on secrecy. Why change it?"

_Never aging, never changing, _I think. _Never learning. Never becoming real._

"I want their names so I can take them home," I repeat. "Will you grant me them?"

"Why should we?" Gin snarls. The false smile is gone. "We ought to destroy you now, and these children with you, for this insult!"

"Try," I snap, letting a little anger alight in my eyes, a little passion. "What can you do? Trap me in a nightmare, drown me or drop me or hurt me there? Try! I dare you to try, and if you're so confident, succeed! I dare you!" They recoil as the words strike them like a fist. Have they ever before encountered defiance from pretty, frivolous Faeries?

"Fine," Vermouth laughs, the first to speak first. She is smiling again, while the rest still look shocked, almost… scared. Have they ever been defied so before, by Faerie or human? _No imagination, no creativity, no _thoughts_. How long has it been since they had to really _think,_ rather than simply steal or remember, repeating old motions and words, over and over?_

"We will grant you the names if you can survive our nightmares," Vermouth says. The others' shock turns to her. She is bargaining with me? "You must survive, and escape… with your "ototo-chan"." She laughs as she indicates Conan, as she refers to him so. It almost hurts. He is no kin of mine, not really. I am simply repaying what I have taken from him. "The little girl will stay here with us until you return." She smiles as we all start. "In case you get lost in the dreams…"

She nods to somebody, but before I can realize who, Ai has slipped from my grasp as darkness engulfs us. I cling to Conan tighter, but he too is gone; and I am alone in the dark.

* * *

_He was Shinichi to begin with, __**llamaglamasama,**__ but now he's more Kaito… Glad you love it!_

_I know, poor Kai-chan's going through so much here, __**Marie Ravenclaw**__, and there's worse to come…_

_Fantasy geeks gotta stick together, __**SoftcoreOtaku**__ XDXD But of course the BO would be the mysterious evil! :P_

_The Brothers Grim's tales are indeed VERY different from the Disney versions, __**KageNoNeko**__… considerably more of the death and nasty details. For example, in the original Snow White tale, she undergoes two other deaths from being crushed by a cursed corset (and returning to life when the dwarves remove it) and having her head rent open by a cursed comb (which magically heals when the dwarves crush the comb) before the poisoned apple (which the dwarves can't find; she wakes when the kiss dislodges the piece of apple in her mouth). Disney always gets rid of the good, gory bits DX_

_Actually, __**Lisa Telramor,**__ I'm not really planning for Aoko to appear… she's a character from Kaito's life who never crossed into Shinichi's. I'm glad you love it so much, I spent some brain-twisting time figuring out the magical logistics of this XD_

_I'll post again (if) when I'm able, __**Cat**__ XDXDXD_

Only in my wildest dreams do I own Meitantei Conan or Magic Kaito. Please don't dream up a lawsuit.


	6. Chapter 5

It's dark, and silent. It's neither cold nor warm; complete sensory deprivation. I wait for the nightmare to begin, but slowly it dawns that this _is_ the nightmare. Nothingness, forever and ever; nothingness without end. Conan must be here somewhere too, I know. I focus on what I know, what is real.

Conan. He is real, in the nothingness somewhere. They will have separated us as far apart as they can, but they can't put infinity between us. It's impossible. Infinity has no end, no edges. It never ends. No matter how much space they put between us, there will be yet more beyond us, surrounding us; an infinity more around us than between us. Compared to how much space there is around us, the space between us is nothing at all. I remember this. _Relatively, there is no space between us at all._

And then there is no space between us at all.

I grab Conan, as if to stop him slipping away again. He looks as if he might be frightened, but will not show it. He is keeping his face as calm and impassive as mine, just a little anger seeping through. His mouth moves, trying to frame words, but no sound travels through the void. I hold him, confirming to him that I am here, I alone am real, and I am going to get him out.

He taps his eyes, and then waves a hand at the void. _They'll be watching us. They want to see us rot forever. One of them will be watching us until they know we've given up hope._

I nod. _If they are here somewhere, there is no more space between them and us than there is between us._

Then Korn is there with us.

I almost laugh. Of course. Who would create nothingness except the Faerie that is, as Akako termed him, "in charge of boring"? His blank face, already permanently downcast like a bloodhound, grows more sullen. He can't seem to move. I guess that he is trying to dream himself away; I imagine that he is there with us. Humans talk of Hypnagogia, a state between sleeping and waking, being asleep but being just awake enough to know that you're asleep; I have heard them talking about changing dreams when they're in that state. Imaginations are more powerful than dreams. He can't escape; already I have control.

It was a mistake to send the simplest first. I feel that if I had been trapped in one of Gin's nightmares, I might be dead already; I'm not used to dreams. But in this nothingness, I have time to think and plan and get used to affecting dreams. I have time to learn to fight.

I imagined that there was no space between us. Now, I imagine that there is space; an infinity of space. And it is between every cell in Korn's body.

Explosion is almost too crass a word for it. And then we are back in the council chamber, and there is one less set of Elder eyes watching us.

Ai jumps. To her, I suppose, we briefly flickered out of existence, then returned, and Korn vanished. Or maybe we were gone for a long time and she had given up on us returning. Chianti looks incensed. Vodka looks frightened. Gin looks angry. Bourbon looks thoughtful. Vermouth looks on the edge of laughter.

"Was that all?" I ask, trying to sound arrogant, amused. I strengthen the Poker Face. "I haven't really dreamed a lot before, but really, that wasn't that scary. Want to give me those names now?"

"Why, you little-" Chianti snarls. She flaps her wings, and a warm breeze blows towards us, with a hint of salt-

I blink, holding up a hand against the bright sunlight. I break out in a sweat- it's hot and humid, not quite unpleasantly so. There's sand beneath my feet and the sound of waves in my ears. I glance around in surprise. _A beach?_

"Wow, it's hot," Conan complains, then takes his hand from mine and runs for the sea. I reach out to stop him, but this place feels… safe, I don't know. I just don't feel threatened. It's warm and comfortable on this beach.

"_She prefers killing in dreams to killing in nightmares…_"

I can't let my guard down. Somehow, she's going to sneak in.

Damn, it's hot. Conan seems happy enough, splashing in the sea. It looks cool and inviting. Without a second thought, I wade in. It's _baking_- but the sea is so pleasantly cool!

I have to keep reminding myself to keep my guard up. I can't afford to feel like I'm in a happy dream. I can't afford to feel safe. I swim towards Conan, trying to ignore how good the cool water feels. I dive underwater, trying to shock myself awake with the coldness. It just feels pleasant.

The sight that confronts me is not pleasant.

I can see clearly underwater. I can see the huge shark heading straight towards Conan, mouth open, eyes glinting. I feel my heart stop.

"_If you die in the dream, you die for real._"

I try to scream for Conan, but the sound is lost underwater. He can't see the shark coming, huge and kind of reddish-brown…

It's Chianti. The shark is Chianti, the colouring is her, but in size and shape it reminds me of some huge monster shark like Jaws.

I wish I had that shark-hunting guy from the movie. On the other hand, he didn't kill the shark, did he? It ate him. A different guy kills the shark at the end. He shoots it…

I can feel the rifle in my hands and know, somehow, that it will work underwater. I need it to.

Chianti turns a little and sees me. I raise the rifle.

"Smile you sonnuva-" I growl, firing.

The shark is blown apart. Conan screams in surprise, a wave washing him towards me, and I grab him a second before we return once more, instantly dried and redressed, to the council chamber, where now there are two empty seats.

In my head, Akako is laughing so hard that she might almost be crying.

"Is that all?" I say maliciously. I'm starting to _feel_ joyful, arrogant, certain that I'll really do this. I can't afford these feelings, I can't afford complacency. I can't afford to start taking them lightly when they stop doing the same for me, and their expressions clearly say that there will be no more leeway. "I'm insulted." I rein in the emotions inside my head, but not on my face.

"Not for long," Gin growls. And we are falling.

Conan screams in terror as the wind whistles past us. I am less afraid. I have experienced falling before, and it seems to me now but a prelude to flying. I reach out to Conan, holding onto him, and looking down.

The ground is rapidly approaching. I try to stretch my wings and I can't.

_Maybe two of them are doing this one,_ I think. _I have to focus. I have to… imagine… wings…_ but I can feel wings slipping my mind like they seem to have slipped from my back, and I pull Conan close, yelling in his ear over the roar of the wind.

"Help me!" I yell. "Imagine that I have wings! Large white ones, like white leaves! Imagine them! Conan, help me imagine them!"

Conan nods shakily, clinging to me, and closes his eyes, his face going blank as he concentrates. I feel something flicker, tugging at my back. I spread my wings and our fall ends, suspended in the air.

"Wonderful!" I cry happily, hugging Conan. We've done it! Now to find the Faerie who followed us in…

I hear an angry noise behind me and spin in the air to see Vodka flying not far away. His wings are thick and black, like a bird's. A raven's or a crow's, perhaps. He looks confused.

_I see,_ I muse with a smile. _There are two. Gin made this dream but Vodka came in to watch. Lackey. How to deal with him…?_

"It's like flying in a plane, but better," Conan says innocently, staring down at the ground. "The view's better."

"A plane, huh?" I say thoughtfully, eyeing Vodka's birdlike wings. I feel gravity grow stronger and my wings struggle. Flapping desperately, I whisper, "Conan, imagine an aeroplane for me. One of the really big ones, with two huge turbine engines on each wing."

"Sure!" Conan says with a grin. "That's easy! I didn't know what your wings looked like…" I hear the roar of engines behind me. It's loud and approaching fast. "… but I know what a plane looks like!"

I think about the plane, about where it's going to fly, and when I do I lose concentration on my wings and they vanish. I fall, Conan screams, but I focus on the plane, there'll be time enough…

Vodka grins when he sees us fall, but the grin is wiped off of his face when he looks up to face the aeroplane, and then his face is wiped off of his skull by the turbine. I tuck Conan's face into my chest so that he can't see.

Black feathers shoot out of the back of the engine.

We land softly on the floor of the council chamber. Gin is _very_ angry now. The light around us is red.

"_Oh, this is good,_" Akako chortles. "_I haven't been able to follow you into the dreams, but did you _really_ destroy Korn, Chianti and Vodka? Oh, this is brilliant!_"

_I can think, _I reply, showing no reaction to her words on my face. _I can learn. Dreams can't defeat me, but they keep throwing them at me!_

"_I don't know about that,_" Akako thinks."_They will try different dreams. Everybody has a weakness. Everybody._"

Then her voice vanishes as darkness surrounds me again, but it is not the empty darkness of Korn's nightmare. It is simply nighttime, and I am sitting on the edge of a rooftop, the city of Tokyo around me.

"What?" Conan says in surprise, clinging to my hand. "Tokyo…?"

"Did they send us home?" I ask the air in confusion. _No, that can't be. Gin looked so angry. He wouldn't just send us home. And I still don't know his name!_

"C'mon, come on!" Conan says urgently, tugging my hand. "Let's go home! I want to see Kaasan and Tousan!"

"Okay…" I say, picking him up and spreading my wings. I know where I am, anyway, so I fly for home.

Before long, I'm lost.

"_That can't be right,_" I think with a frown, glancing down. "_I know these streets, but I shouldn't be flying over them. Did I go the wrong way?_" I turn, heading towards home, but soon I am in the wrong place again.

"What's taking so long?" Conan complains. I'm beginning to panic. How can I get lost _here_? Here, in Tokyo, over streets that I have been flying over for three years? This can't be!

Besides, I feel like I'm being followed.

"Not much longer," I reassure Conan, but he's shivering and gives me a look which says clearly that he doesn't believe me. All the time, a nameless dread is building, a sense that something is following us. When I look around, I can see nothing, but nevertheless the feeling is there.

"Did they really send us home?" Conan wonders aloud. "It doesn't feel right. And my memories are still all funny. And where's Ai?"

_That's right,_ I realize. _This isn't home. It's another nightmare. They tricked us_!

And I nearly fell for it. I _did_ fall for it. Akako was right. They almost got the better of me. I would have wandered forever.

Now that I know that I'm in a dream, however, I think I know what to do. Something nameless is chasing me, but it's likely one of them, like the shark in Chianti's dream. I have to go back, I have to locate them and stop them. I stop and turn in midair.

"What's going on?" Shinichi asks, looking around. "Where are we going?"

"We're not home yet," I tell him. "But we will be soon." I head straight towards the source of the dread and terror taking over me. _Trying_ to take over me. Now that I know it is a dream, I can change it. I am more real than it is. Conan is more real than the both of us, and I have to get him home. To that end, I chase the nameless dread across familiar and unfamiliar streets. And I am gaining.

It's not chasing. It's being chased. I've made this turnaround before. I remember it, and almost laugh.

Floodlights shoot up from the streets below, illuminating me, illuminating my quarry. It has a form now, the form of Gin. Without his little lackey, he came himself, and throws his hands up over his eyes to hide from the glare as it burns at him.

"Get down here _now_, you bastard!" Nakamori Ginzo yells- well, not the true man, just my dream of him. I decide to give him a bit of credit, and dream him as large as King Kong and twice as angry, though I've no need for imagination for that. He towers over us even as we fly, and I dodge out of the searchlights with a practised ease, leaving only Gin, unused to being pursued thus. He tries to flee from the searchlights but they follow them- if they can generally keep up with me, what chance does Gin chance of escaping? And I've caught him off-balance; this is _my_ dream now, my heist, my turf.

Nakamori can only see Gin. He snarls angrily and reaches down a massive hand on the end of the long arm of the law, closing around Gin- perhaps a little too tightly. Gin screams angrily, and then there's a nasty _crunch_.

Conan claps, saluting the police sirens. They fade away, returning us to the council chamber. Though I don't show it, I'm worried now. I'm standing in the golden light, clinging to Conan, with Ai hiding behind my feet, and am faced with four empty chairs and three arguably more frightening filled ones. Bourbon has yet to show any emotion beyond a vague, calculating interest, and this worries me. More than likely, he's a little more at home with creative thought than the others, and he's got a plan. Vermouth is smiling more broadly than ever. That worries me too. I'm sure that she can't be up to any good.

And the Dark Faerie is still nothing but roiling blackness. That worries me most of all.

"Well?" I say, unable to resist the urge to taunt even though I know that it's probably a stupid thing to do. I'm still feeling the adrenaline that always comes from leading the police on a chase, though, tinged with an arrogance and a recklessness that it takes a lot to control. I should probably control it now.

"_Don't get cocky,_" Akako warns me. "_Think of it like a video game. You're going up against boss after boss, and you're about to hit the sub-final boss. Your levels have gone up but, I feel, your stamina may have gone down. And I think you'll have to deal with Bourbon next, and he's-"_ her voice cuts off abruptly as Bourbon smiles, and then he vanishes.

* * *

_Yes, I'm alive. Weather here's been HORRENDOUS- either a horde of Gyarados are doing a rampaging Rain Dance around Scotland, or the sea is reclaiming the land by fucking airdrop, pardon the language. But it's like this. A week of gale-force wind and rain and power lines start going down. We also lose telephone lines, some of which are connected to our broadband provider. A downed line collapses on the building and starts a fire, which the firemen solve by flooding the building- whether using fire hoses or simply by punching holes in the roof, I don't know. The result is that the internet is down. My mom who is a LEGEND finally browbeat them into routing us through another provider, but when they switch back they'll more than likely screw something up and leave us without internet again. And that's if we're lucky and the weather DOESN'T take out phone and power lines again, which is likely, given the continuing state of the weather. So if I vanish again, that's what it is._

_Almost every ancient culture in the world has a flood legend, generally lasting "forty days and forty nights". There seems to be no corresponding Celtic legend that I can find, likely because, in Scotland and Ireland, forty days and forty nights of rain is not a rare occurrence._

Only in my wildest dreams do I own Meitantei Conan or Magic Kaito. Please don't dream up a lawsuit.


	7. Chapter 6

We're still in the spotlight, but the ground below is no longer golden. It's cold and grey and metallic, like we're in a warehouse or something. Conan shrinks closer to me.

"What're they doing now?" He moans. Then he blinks as another spotlight flashes to life. "Kaasan?"

I jolt in surprise. It _is_ his mother, lying on the floor not far away. I can feel my blood chill. She's lying so still, curled up in an almost foetal position, light-brown hair splayed raggedly around her, one hand outstretch and lying flat against the floor, as if she's reaching for us. Her eyes are stretched wide open, perfectly circular, but her mouth is tight shut. She seems to be staring at us, but increasingly I feel that I cannot see us.

She's too still. She seems to be outreached and staring, accusing, but she's too still. I can feel the bottom drop out of my stomach. It couldn't be, they can't have brought her here, they can't have…

"Kaasan," Conan whimpers. "Kaasan!" he bolts away from me, reaching for her.

"Conan, don't-" I yell, reaching for him, but before I can reach him he reaches his mother. The barest second before he touches her, the light blinks out and she vanishes. I grab his arm to pull him back. He's trembling a little, frightened and confused.

"It isn't real," I tell him quietly. "They use dreams and nightmares. It isn't real. It can't be…" I trail off as another spotlight flashes into life. It's his father this time, in precisely the same position as his mother- same curled posture, the same outreached, accusing arm, the same wide eyes. I try to tell myself that it's not real, but it _looks_ real, and it speaks to, if not my nightmares (I have never slept), then my greatest fears. They look dead, dead in great terror. It hurts to think of them that way, but I hide it. Conan is shaking visibly. He can remember his parents. It hurts him too, to see them that way.

"Tousan…" he whispers, stepping forwards. I tug him back, but the movement is enough to make the light vanish, and another comes to life behind us. This time, it's Ran.

"Who…?" Conan says, furrowing his brows. I'm not sure if he remembers Ran, and if he did he hasn't seen her since she was six years old. I can remember, though. She's in the same position, still dead and frightened. Her outreached hand and wide stare, like the others, assaults me with a sense of guilt; they're blaming me. _It's my fault_.

"Ran," I murmur. "But it isn't. It's not real. It isn't…" I can feel guilt and shame overtaking me. I know that it's what he wants me to feel, but I can't stop it.

"Ran?" Conan says with a frown. "She's an adult?"

"She is, and she's home somewhere, and safe," I tell Conan quietly. "You hear me?" I yell into the darkness. "It's not real and I _know_ it's not! Throw as many bodies as you like at us, they're not real! They're all home and safe…" I gasp as the air suddenly freezes, choking the words in my throat, rendering me silent. A moment later and I am on the ground, curled up as the others had been. I can't move, utterly frozen. I can see Bourbon smiling cruelly at me. Where's Conan? I begin to panic. Where is he?

Bourbon smiles as he feels my panic rising. They're standing in between him and I, my parents, Ran, Hattori (would he have been next on the floor if I hadn't realized in time?), all standing protectively between Bourbon and I. And Bourbon has dogs at his side, huge creatures like wolves. I struggle against my paralysis, but I can't move, even as Bourbon smiles more broadly and the dogs leap.

I can't even close my eyes as the wolves tear them apart, I can't close my ears to their screaming. Bourbon is smiling the whole time.

"_It's my fault… because of me, because they were with me…_" seems to be the only thought capable of passing through my head. Guilt and blame assault me. Yes. This is my greatest fear. That they will be hurt because of me…

_Wrong, unnatural, freak,_ the wolves snarl. _Wrong. Kill. Kill._

"_Freak_?" I think almost glad that they're about to tear me apart, to send me after them. "_Yes, I'm unnatural… a Faerie… who clung… to humanity…_"

"You're gonna pay for that!"

To my shock, there are gunshots, and the dogs pull back, whimpering. A small hand tugs me up.

"He's taking _your_ nightmares," Conan insists. "He didn't take these from other kids, they wouldn't have Kaasan and Tousan if they did, and he had to take them from you for grown-up Ran and that other guy to appear. He's taking them from _you_. If they're yours, you can control them, right?"

"My nightmares…?" I say, confused. My kind have no imagination, no creativity of our own! I can't _have_ nightmares!

"I guess we're linked or something and it's a bit mine, too," Conan says, hefting a pistol at the dogs. "They reminded me of the dog in _Hound Of The Baskervilles._ Holmes shot it and it died. I can scare them off but you've got to get rid of them, okay?"

"What _are_ you?" Bourbon says, staring at me, suddenly frightened. The bodies have vanished, only the confused and frightened wolves in between us.

"Who knows?" I say with a little grin. "I'm the Kaitou Kid. I'm a human and a Faerie and whichever I am, I'm not quite like anybody else. Right now, though…" the dogs begin to growl again, but not at us. They're slowly turning on Bourbon. "I'm feeling very human. You've threatened people that I care about, and that's very human in and of itself, because Faeries don't really care about much beyond their own entertainment, do they? But I care about my parents and my friends-" I grip Conan's hand tightly "-and Conan. You threatened them. That makes me _angry_." The dogs snarl and leap. Bourbon yells and steps back, but he can't summon up any defence. Conan's right. This is _my_ nightmare. But I have no intent to suffer.

He screams for an instant as the dogs tear him apart, and as he dies it all vanishes. We are alone in the council chamber, alone with the Shadow Faerie.

"_That's just incredible,_" Akako is laughing in my head. "_A human Faerie! Wonders never cease. Final Boss, now. He's a little different, though…_"

"Give me their names," I demand of the shadow cloud that seems to spread, attempting to fill the room. Conan shivers in fear. Ai is gone- has it consumed her?

"_That won't work,_" Akako snorts. "_He's… I'll come clean, he's not quite like the other Faeries. Most of them began in dreams and happy imaginary games or made by Elders as Changelings. He's from something even older, something a bit more primal than imagination. He's born in fear, fear of the shadows and the unknown._"

_What are you trying to say?_ I ask her, shrinking back a little. The darkness spreads, and I can hear voices, whispering things…

"_I suppose a more apt word for him than Faerie is…_" Akako hesitates. "_Well, _bogeyman."

_Bogeyman?_ I almost snort. But it's not so absurd. Coldness emanates from it, rotted air, reaching for me all the time and I can't get away…

"_The darkness under the bed, the voices and noises in the night… don't you feel that from him?_" Akako asks sharply. She's right. Conan has closed his eyes, childishly thinking that if he can't see anything, it won't see him…

_That's it!_ I gasp, reaching over my shoulder and ripping off my white cape. I do genuinely have a cape, it looks good and the cops think it turns into a hanglider. No sense in dissuading them from deceiving themselves, it saves me a lot of effort. I flap out the white cloth.

"_What? You have an idea to destroy it?_" Akako asks in surprise.

_A very simple one, _I smile, reaching down to pick up Conan and cradle him against my shoulder, raising the white cloth in my other. _The simplest. After all, every child knows how to get rid of the monsters under the bed…_

"Conan," I murmur, "Have you ever been scared of monsters under the bed?" He shakes his head, but I know he's lying, and when he cracks an eye open to look at me he can tell that I'm not buying it.

"Okay, yeah," he admits, "but I just put my head under the covers and they go away…"

_Precisely,_ I say to Akako, drawing the cape over our heads.

"_You can't be planning to gamble on that!_" Akako gasps.

_Have you met me?_

There's silence for several minutes after I pull the "cover" over our heads. Then something barrels into my legs.

"They're all gone!" Ai gasps. "How…?" I drop the cape, and am pleased and smug to see that the black cloud is gone. There is only Ai, who happily hugs Conan when I put him down…

…and Vermouth, slowly clapping with a smile on her face.

"Just you left, eh?" I say, mentally bracing myself. She just laughs.

"No need to fear, my lucky clover," she laughs. "I have no intention of hindering your leaving. All I ask in exchange for the names…" she extends a languorous finger, indicating my wrist. "Is Akako-chan's bracelet."

"What?" I say in surprise, momentarily dropping my guard from shock and glancing at the bracelet. Conan and Ai glance up in confusion.

"_Give her the bracelet,_" Akako prompts in my head. "_It's okay…_"

"It's okay," Ai echoes. "Do not fear. She told me her tale. She's like you, niisan!"

"Like me?" I say in surprise, removing the bracelet. "A Faerie who…?"

"A Faerie who hung onto a little humanity," Vermouth says with a truer smile than the amused grins that she's displayed thus far. "Most discard it easily, but I hung onto humanity in order to dream for myself. Your own dreams are so much more beautiful than stolen ones, you know. And I've been able to indulge in a kind of fun that the unimaginative can't touch, one that I'm sure you're familiar with."

"Me?" I say in surprise, tossing the bracelet to her. Conan and Ai both glance at me.

"Breaking the rules," Vermouth says with a grin. She flicks the bracelet into the air, spinning it…

…and Akako reaches up her arm for it to slide back into place.

"Who are you?" Ai gasps, Conan clinging to me. Well, Akako _is_ a little scary-looking.

"Akako? What the hell are you up to?" I settle for.

"Thanks to you, the Elders are out of the way and I can come back," she sighed happily, then grinned at Vermouth. "Chris-chan! It's been too long."

"It's a name I wore as a human," Vermouth explains, high-fiving Akako. "You see, I needed someone to get rid of the Elders so that my friend here could come back to Faerieland. She was here once before, you know, but she left. I helped a little, of course. Breaking the rules, you know." She winks at me. Conan looks confused, but Ai looks thoughtful. How long has she been here… how much has she learned?

"I never got my name back, so I took a bit of Faerie magic with me," Akako says, snapping her fingers and making little sparks dance off of them. "It… expands my lifespan, a little. But once I'd grown up, and the people that I'd wanted to get back to had passed on… I wanted to come back." She closes her eyes, as if concentrating; elaborate black wings spread from her back. "I wanted to be a Faerie. Reality here is only a matter of opinion, so I figure that if I want to be a Faerie here, I'll be a Faerie."

"And that sounds like fun, so I decided to help her," Vermouth says with a wink. "With a little humanity, an ability to dream, I don't need to steal children. I promise I won't do so anymore, though I can't promise that I won't have a little fun in the human world once in a while. But you can go home."

"Th… thank you," Ai whispers. I nod at Vermouth. Conan and Ai, while looking grateful, look a little confused; I can understand where Vermouth's coming from. She's only in it for the funsies, arguably the only reason for anyone ever doing anything.

"Go home, Kuroba Kaito," Vermouth says softly. "And take Kudo Shinichi and Miyano Shiho with you."

"Later, Kid-sama," Akako says, blowing a little kiss as she vanishes. I awake and she and Vermouth are gone; I am lying on my bed, as I was before, an empty chair by the bedside and Shinichi and Shiho in my arms.

* * *

_Okay, that should be the backlog cleared up. Next chapter tomorrow and APT on Tuesday. Maybe. Weather being good (aye, right)_

Only in my wildest dreams do I own Meitantei Conan or Magic Kaito. Please don't dream up a lawsuit.


	8. Chapter 7

Shinichi and Shiho stare at the room in awe, for different reasons. Shiho's in a completely alien land, I know; she slips from my side and wanders around almost as if she's sleepwalking, staring at books, jumping when she nudges my computer chair and it rolls away from where it was sitting next to my bed, rotating slightly. It's different for Shinichi. This is a familiar place turned alien, like Tokyo in Gin's nightmare. I wrap a protective arm around him.

"Welcome home," I say softly. He stares around the room with a surprised expression, and then looks up at me.

He smiles broadly.

"Thank you!" He yells happily, throwing his arms around my neck. "You got me home! Thank you thank you thank you!"

I hug him back, surprised. I'm surprised by how happy he is, surprised that he's thanking me.

"Why are you thanking me?" I ask quietly, little more than breath brushing across his ear. "It's my kind's fault that you were taken away…"

"But you got me back, and anyway you're not like the others," Shinichi insists. "You're one of a kind." That makes me grin as I remember what I told Vermouth.

"Sh… Shinichi?"

We both turn to the tearful question from the doorway. My mother is standing there, tears in her eyes, staring at Shinichi and I. I set him down on the floor, where he turns to face our mother. _His_ mother.

"Kaasan!" he sobs, running over to her and jumping into her arms.

"Shinichi!" she cries, hugging him tight. "Oh, Shinichi, Shinichi, Shinichi…" she keeps repeating his name over and over, like she's binding him there. Shiho stops examining my keyboard curiously and watches the tearful reunion. I simply sit on the bed, watching them as she does. I'm glad to see that they're together again, but I'm sad too. This is a family that I have no place in. Now that they are reunited, I'm alone. I clench my fists in an urge not to show upset. I'm lonely. I can't show that. I love them so much, even though they're not my family, not really. I don't want to get in the way of their happiness, not again.

"Yuusaku," she's begun to yell. "Yuusaku! He's back, Yuusaku, he's back…"

"Yukiko?" I hear him call. He's coming up the stairs, he'll see his son, he'll be happy too. They'll be reunited. I'll be left out.

Shiho backs away from them a little, sitting down on the end of the bed. I know that she feels left out too, but nevertheless she looks hopeful. I'm jealous. She's a child, she can be taken in by an adoption agency, find a new family, a new life. I look like I'm in my late teens, technically an adult. I'm too old to be adopted like that. I'm on my own.

It's everything I expected. He looks closer to crying than I've ever seen him, holding his wife and son close. They're together again, and there's no room for me.

Is what I think up until Shinichi's mother, still holding him, suddenly jumps up and hugs me.

"Thank you, thank you, _thank_ you!" she cheers happily. "You really brought him back! Oh, thank you, thank you so much…"

"I-it's okay," I insist, thrown off by the affection. "Really. I mean, I… I was just…"

"I don't care what you were "just", you brought him back," she insists. Shinichi grins at me. "We're all together again!"

"Thank you… Kaito?" her husband says, reaching out a hand to shake mine. I shake it, a little shellshocked, as she begins fussing over Shiho. "Really. I'm sorry if we ever made you feel unwanted… we're forever indebted to you for bringing our son back to us. And… You said that we were like parents to you, the only ones you've ever known. I think… the reason that we left wasn't quite that we hated you… it was that you _did_ feel like a son to us, even though we didn't want to feel that way. I'm sorry for that. What happened to Shinichi wasn't your fault, and you've far more than repaid any blame that you should have felt, which wasn't a lot…"

"Thank you," I murmur, feeling my eyes well up. "I… you mean… I can stay? As if… I'm…"

"Well, frankly, in lieu of thinking up an explanation why Shin-chan seems to have shrunken thirteen years," our mother- and she's my mother again, I know, no matter what- says thoughtfully, "you might as well keep pretending to be him until he's big enough to step back into his life."

"Thirteen years?" Shinichi and I chorus in surprise, for different reasons.

"I've been gone for _thirteen years_?!" Shinichi squeaks in shock.

"I've been out of it for a _whole year_?!" I gasp. "But what…?"

"I guess time worked a little differently… wherever you were," our father sighs. "We followed you and Akako-san up here and you were lying on the bed- well, floating half an inch off of it- in your true form. Akako-san was sitting next to you with her eyes closed and one hand on your forehead. Neither of you moved for days, then weeks… eventually we accepted that it might be a very long time before you came back."

"Hattori-kun and Kazuha-chan were already aware of what was happening," our mother says, patting Shinichi on the back with one hand while absent-mindedly smoothing my hair with the other. I have to resist the urge to lean into her touch, like a cat getting its ears scratched. I never imagined that I'd be allowed to stay, that I could be with the people that I love- That they love me back. "We told Ran-chan when she turned up, too. She was worried about you, running off like that."

"Wait, you told _Ran_?" I ask, feeling fear rise. She knows I'm…?

"Well, we didn't exactly _tell_ her," our father hedges. "She was… rather agitated, and stormed up here."

"Can't stop Ran when she's mad," Shinichi opines.

"She hasn't changed," I assure him. "In fact, now she's a black-belt in Karate, so she's even _more_ dangerous." He laughs while affecting an over-exaggerated shudder of fear, then his expression suddenly shuts down. I suppose he was trying to imagine how she looks now, and then remembered the nightmare that Bourbon tossed us into. I touch his head, driving away the nightmare, and he calms. I glance back to our parents. "So… how'd she take it?"

"Relatively well," our mother says with a shrug. "She waited until after Kazuha-chan and I had had a chance to explain before ranting about how when you turned back up, if you didn't have Shin-chan she was going to break every bone in your body." I swallow hard. I have very little doubt that she would have. Shinichi stares at his mother.

"Well, I'm back, so she's not going to hurt him, right?" he asks, worriedly. "I mean, he saved me. I don't want him to get hurt for that."

"Thank you," I say softly, immeasurably touched. He smiles at me, and I feel peace settle on me.

"So what happened while we were away?"

*****

It's the nighttime, my time, but I no longer have any urge to fly. Earlier, my father commented offhandedly about how the Kaitou Kid vanished mysteriously about the same time I did. I said nothing, and he said no more on the subject. I don't really want to follow that line of enquiry.

It turns out that Kudo Shinichi has an alibi for the past year; he has been globetrotting before going to college. My father has a number of forged postcards in the library. He's currently talking to a few friends of his in the FBI, trying to use the Witness Protection Program to make Kudo Conan, my little cousin, a reality, as well as his sister Ai. Kaasan adores her, she finds her old-fashioned manner of speaking and complete awe of the modern world to be absolutely adorable. We've already had a fun time inventing backstories for both of them, as well as a few tales for me of my world travels; better than board games for binding a family together. I've been thinking of cultivating a life as Kuroba Kaito on the side, though. I've always enjoyed the double life, why stop now?

Besides, Shinichi says that he wants his life back, when he's old enough that nobody'll notice the switch. For taking his life from him, I think the least I can do is look after it until he's ready to return to it, and I want my own life to step into when the time comes.

We haven't decided what to do about Conan when that day comes. Perhaps an accident, perhaps an illness, but when the time comes, we'll have to think of some way for Kudo Conan go. Then and only then will Kudo Shinichi and Kuroba Kaito appear together.

And it will be together. I know this as I sit here, hand resting on Shinichi's cheek while he sleeps peacefully. He was afraid to fall asleep, afraid that he'd relive the nightmares from the Faerie Realm, or that the Faeries would take him again in his dreams. Ai was not so afraid; she's sleeping on the other side of the bed. She fell asleep straight away, unused to such a soft, warm bed, a far cry from an earthen floor and a thin blanket. But Shinichi was afraid. I hate seeing him afraid, and so I promised to be his dreamcatcher, driving away bad dreams and weaving good ones for him. It's a strange way to use my species' ability to tread in the dream world, but using it to protect him makes me happy. I never have to sleep, but the restlessness that once gripped me during dark nights fades while I softly paddle in his dreams. He'll never have a nightmare again.

When the morning comes, I suppose we'll see Ran again (is she with Hondo?), we'll see Hattori, maybe Kazuha too. I don't know if she'll accept me, but I'm not afraid. I have a family who love me, a place to belong, a future, and a purpose- protecting Shinichi's future.

I'm not alone. And if Shinichi will let me stay with him, and continue to protect him, I need never be alone again, until the day we die.

_For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil must give us pause._

I wonder if they're good dreams? If they aren't, I'll _make_ them good. After all, I'm the Kaitou Kid. I'm a human and a Faerie, and there's nothing I can't do. Not as long as Shinichi will dream me.

This is not the end of the story, but it is a peaceful moment in which to do so.

Sweet Dreams.

*****

_Aaaand that's "Faerie Thief". Because I like Celtic mythology and Terry Pratchett books. Finally popped up after a combination of further crappy weather and my parents' fondness for random trips to the Highlands put me offline for a week. Sorry 'bout that XD_

_Vermouth is always awesome, eh, __**Cat**__? XDXD_

_I didn't really get into the Ichthyophobia, __**SoftcoreOtaku**__. I figured that since he grew up as Shinichi, he wouldn't have come across whatever stimulus in Kaito's childhood caused the phobia. It's for similar reasons that Aoko doesn't really exist in this fic :P The rain has finally stopped! Thanks for turning up with Sunny Day, Groudon! XDXDXD_

_I may find this freakier because many of these nightmares are based on actual nightmares I had, __**Marie Ravenclaw**__ XD I missed you, internet! DX_

_Definitely sounds like us, __**Katty008**__ XDXDXD_

_Glad you think so, __**tanteigirl69**__! Vermouth is awesome XD I know first person can be a little tense, but I figured that angle, with the present tense, would help it come across as a little freakier. Gets rid of that remove for the reader, yanno? Anyway, glad you've enjoyed!_

_Lucky you, __**KageNoNeko**__… this is unusually extreme for Scotland, yeah. Proof of Global Warming, or what would be more accurate to call Global Weather Catastrofuck XDXDXDXD_

_Rain and lack of internet connection in the highlands SUCKS, __**KSA Key-chan**__ DX Sooo much catching up… I didn't put too much thought into the differences in the mechanics of the Kids heists, but I'd guess that yeah, the name came about in the same way, and yeah, he does send a note, so that the police and crowds are around to maximise the funsies XD_

_Akako and Vermouth are always fun to write, __**llamaglamasama**_ _XDXDXD and it's true: everything is for funsies XD_

_Anyway, thank you to everyone who read and reviewed, especially for bearing with me. This was supposed to last one week and the weather stretched it out to two :P Hope you found it interesting, different, and above all, enjoyed it!_

Only in my wildest dreams do I own Meitantei Conan or Magic Kaito. Please don't dream up a lawsuit.


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